CINCINNATI — Kentucky has its bourbon distilleries, California its wineries, St. Louis its
Budweiser factory and Philadelphia its local craft brews.

Now business owners and history buffs in Cincinnati want Ohio’s third-largest city to carve out
its own niche in alcohol tourism and transform a bedraggled, crime-prone neighborhood into a
thriving brewery district.

A plan approved by the city council last week identifies a slew of problems in the
Over-the-Rhine Historic District, a picturesque but troubled neighborhood just north of downtown
Cincinnati, and how to begin solving them. The goal is to restore some of the former glory of the
district’s enormous brewing and warehouse buildings, weed out drugs and prostitution, inject new
residents and businesses, and create some buzz.

“Most people don’t know that Cincinnati was one of the biggest brewing centers in the country,”
said Steve Hampton, a local architect and executive director of the nonprofit Brewery District
Community Urban Development Corp., the group behind the plan. “That’s something we’ve not done a
good job of sharing, and we want to remedy that and use it to revitalize the neighborhood.”

Over-the-Rhine — or OTR, as locals call it — was founded by German immigrants in the 19th
century but fell on hard times in the 1970s and ’80s. It was the site of the city’s race riots in
2001 and once was dubbed the most-dangerous neighborhood in America.

In the last decade, OTR has been undergoing intense gentrification amid criticism that the city’s
poorest are being pushed out, and the southern half of the neighborhood has become the trendiest
spot in Cincinnati, with bars, restaurants and high-end condos taking the place of run-down and
often-vacant buildings.

The northern half, where the brewery district is, has been largely untouched by
gentrification.

Back in the late 19th century, the district was at its peak, with 18 large breweries in
operation, some on a national scale, Hampton said.

One of them, the Christian Moerlein Brewing Co., became the fifth-largest brewery in the nation
and might have reached the heights of Anheuser-Busch or MillerCoors had its founders not decided to
close when Prohibition hit in 1920.

All but one of the pre-Prohibition breweries in the district eventually shut their doors, and a
handful were demolished. From 1957 to 2010, only one beer-maker was in business in Over-the-Rhine,
leaving the ornate and massive brick breweries empty and crumbling.

Now, three companies are brewing beer in the district. One of them, Rhinegeist, is new and will
open a taproom to the public on Saturday in what used to be part of the Christian Moerlein
complex.

“I’d love to turn Cincy into a beer-tourism place,” said Bryant Goulding, co-founder and
co-owner of Rhinegeist, a name that pays homage to the neighborhood and plays off the German word
zeitgeist, or the spirit of an age.

Goulding, 31, who moved from San Francisco to Over-the-Rhine a year ago to start the brewery,
said he and his business partner were not dissuaded by the challenges in the neighborhood despite
the naysayers.

“Even the contractors are skeptical,” he said. (But) we’re building a business here, there’s
going to be foot traffic and things are going to be different.”

A planned $130 million streetcar set to open in 2016 will run right next to the brewery and take
passengers through OTR, downtown and the Ohio riverfront.

Rhinegeist is also close to the new Christian Moerlein Brewing Co., which was revived by Greg
Hardman, a longtime beer seller and executive who fell in love with Cincinnati’s brewing roots and
began operating in a pre-Prohibition brewery in Over-the-Rhine in 2010.

The brewery has a taproom open to the public, but Hardman has bigger plans to turn the brewery
into a multimillion-dollar tour facility that includes tours of underground lagering cellars and a
rooftop beer garden overlooking the neighborhood and downtown skyline.